“The accused include former President Cristina Kirchner and former Foreign Minister Hector Timerman on a charge of alleged conspiracy in a cover-up of Iranian complicity in exchange for lucrative sales contracts.”

Paris and Buenos Aires, 6 March 2018

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre has commended Argentina’s Judiciary for its announced intention to bring to court 12 officials - including former President Cristina Kirchner and former Foreign Minister Hector Timerman, and other members of her administration.

All are charged with a cover-up of Iranian complicity in the 1994 bombing of the Buenos Aires AMIA Jewish Centre - which left 85 dead and over 300 wounded.

The officials concerned had signed a “Memorandum” in Tehran to establish a “Truth Commission,” to review the circumstances of the bombing and thereby exonerate six Iranian suspects under INTERPOL “Red Notice” international arrest warrants; shut down the ongoing investigation by Prosecutor Alberto Nisman and end any hope of closure for the families of the victims and the maimed survivors. In exchange, Argentina was to receive a multibillion dollar trade deal from Iran.

This so-called “Memorandum,” under the new government of President Macri, was deemed unconstitutional.

The Centre’s Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels stated that “the Judiciary’s announcement redeems the good name of AMIA Prosecutor Nisman, who was murdered the morning of his scheduled exposure of the cover-up to the Argentine Congress... an assassination denoted by Kirchner as ‘suicide!’...”

Samuels continued, “Nisman, as a friend of our Centre, shared with us elements of his findings at a dinner in London a short time before he was slain.”

The Centre’s Latin American Representative, Dr. Ariel Gelblung, highlighted the simultaneous announcement that, “All data on Nisman’s cell phone and notebook were deleted in the hours between his time of death and the police arrival to his apartment, thus strengthening the conclusion of murder... This trial will mark a threshold for Argentine justice and in the battle against terrorism,” he concluded.

For further information, contact Shimon Samuels on +33 609 770 158, join the Center on Facebook, www.facebook.com/simonwiesenthalcenter, or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent direct to your Twitter feed.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).